I've been working with PHP for couple of months now. Learning online, copy paste some code from online tutorials etc.
One major problem now is there are many unclean/unstable/unsecure/bad practice php tutorials out there.

I decided it's time for me to go to the next step. I heard about the current most popular PHP framework is Zend. How should I start with that? What softwares do I need to install? Any recommendation for Tutorials/book/video training?

3 Answers
3

Starting with a Framework is a good idea. That will help you to improve the structure of your code and you'll find that it is easier to make bigger projects.

If you want to start with the Zend Framework, I recommend you the Zend Framework Quickstart which is a good tutorial to get started with it and have a first overview of the different patterns used in the framework.

While Zend Framework 1.x is a very powerful tool (and I use it frequently) I would not recommend it as a framework for learning best practice.

If you're truly interested in learning the best practices and standards for PHP development then you're much better off working with the latest Zend Framework 2 builds, which will actually teach you current PHP 5.3 standards like proper namespacing and autoloading.